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• 05 / 01 / 2009

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Experts from Cuba and Mexico began on Tuesday an international course on scoliosis surgery, during which participants will hold exchanges on current treatments of this deformity and its projections.

In an exclusive interview with ACN, Professor Rodrigo Älvarez Cambras, director of Havana’s Frank País International Orthopaedic and Scientific Complex -the event’s venue- and President of the Organizing Committee explained that this meeting is backed by a German company, which has put special equipment at its disposal.

The event, which includes lectures and operations, is sponsored by the Cuban and international societies of orthopaedic surgery, the Havana school of this specialty and the Ibero-American School of Orthopedics.

The physician highlighted that surgery on scoliosis is very expensive and some 2,500 dollars are needed for instruments for each patient, without including other expenses.

Alvarez Cambras, who is also the head of the National Group of Orthopaedics, announced that services in six of the archipelago’s provinces will be opened during the remaining months of this year and in 2010, in order to cover the country’s demands.

Participating in the course are 80 Cuban and Mexican experts, among them Lieutenant Colonel Dr. Gonzalo Santiago Tipac, who will speak, along with national colleagues, on the handling of degenerative scoliosis and experiences in trauma of the medulla oblongata and the bone marrow (spine fracture due to an accident).

Älvarez Cambras commented that there are several types of scoliosis, among them congenital.  He explained that this is the most serious of all, because children are born with deformities in their vertebrae and it is very hard to treat. In the case of youth scoliosis, known as idiopathic scoliosis, it begins when patients are from 10 to 12 years of age, and is of unknown origin.

In addition, he cited paralytic scoliosis, caused by neurological problems or polio, as well as by traumatism.

In Cuba, 80% of all scoliosis are idiopathic, of genetic origin, clarified Alvarez Cambras, adding that, if detected in time, deformities – and therefore surgery- can be avoided, by way of physical exercises and the use of corsets.     
    
    Source: Radio Rebelde